Chapter 2 The Night She Paid For

The master suite of Vale Manor wasn't a bedroom. It was a battlefield dressed in marble and silk. Midnight-blue walls, blood-red rugs, and twin chandeliers hanging above a bed wide enough to swallow her whole.

Alina stepped in like a shadow.

The wedding dress clung to her body like something borrowed from someone else's life. Her feet were bare now. Her hands trembled against the lace at her waist.

Xander Vale followed behind her, untucking his shirt one-handed, the other gripping a glass of whiskey that was already half empty.

He kicked the door shut with a sharp, echoing thud.

"So," he said, voice a little too calm. "Here we are."

Alina turned. "I wasn't supposed to stay."

"No," he said. "You were supposed to be a prop. A headline. A body in a dress."

His eyes were dark coal under pressure. She'd always known he was beautiful, but tonight he was something more. Terrible. Inevitable.

He was six-foot-two of raw, cut dominance. His body was forged broad chest wrapped in fine cotton, sleeves rolled halfway to forearms marked with the faint ridges of muscle and sin. Even drunk, he moved like a predator who knew every inch of the room belonged to him.

She remembered his voice when she was ten, breaking the window of that locked car. She remembered how he carried her, wet with sweat and tears. How her cheek rested against that same chest. How he didn't even look at her.

He still didn't.

"I'll sleep in another room," she said. "I'll be gone in the morning."

Xander dropped his glass. It shattered across the stone tiles.

"Do you think you get to decide that?" he asked.

She stiffened.

"I didn't ask for this," she whispered.

"You didn't stop it either," he said, stalking toward her. "You could've said no. Could've walked out in that white dress and made a fool of my father."

Alina backed up slow, unthinking until her spine hit the edge of the bed.

"But you didn't," he said.

"I was told "

"You were told, and you listened. That's what people like you do. You survive on scraps and thank the wolves for not biting harder."

His voice was low. Brutal.

And his hand was already on her throat.

Not squeezing.

Just holding.

Testing.

Her breath caught. Her body froze and melted at the same time.

He leaned down, breath hot in her ear. "You love me, don't you?"

She couldn't speak.

"You think I didn't notice the way you used to look at me? Those pathetic little sighs behind the copier. You dreamed about this, didn't you? Dreamed about me."

He pushed her back onto the bed with one hand.

Alina gasped as she landed, soft silk bunching under her thighs.

He reached down hooked two fingers beneath the neckline of her dress and ripped.

Fabric tore.

Her breasts spilled free, soft and high, nipples already peaked from fear and cold.

Xander stared.

His hand came up, rough knuckles brushing over one nipple. It hardened further beneath his touch.

She whimpered.

He lowered his mouth.

The first lick was slow, cruel.

He sucked hard biting the tip just enough to make her jolt.

Alina's hips shifted instinctively. Her thighs squeezed together.

She had imagined this. For years.

But not like this.

Never like this.

His hand moved down between her legs.

She tried to close them. He forced them apart with a growl.

"Don't hide," he said. "You asked for this."

His fingers slipped under the thin lace of her underwear, and

"Oh " she gasped, arching.

One finger slid in.

Then two.

He crooked them. Found something she didn't know existed.

Alina cried out high and quiet and desperate.

"Never done this before, have you?" he murmured.

She shook her head.

Tears slipped down her cheek.

"Of course not," he said. "They always want the first to be something soft. Something slow. But you married me."

He pulled her underwear off with one brutal tug and unbuckled his belt.

And then she saw it.

Thick. Long. Veined. Hard.

It hit his stomach as he stepped out of his pants.

Her breath caught.

There was no way he would fit.

But she wanted him to.

She wanted to feel ruined by him.

Xander knelt on the bed, pushing her knees apart with both hands.

"Look at me," he growled.

She did.

And then he pressed into her inch by inch.

Alina gasped.

It burned. Stretched. Invaded.

And it was everything.

He grunted, his fingers digging into her hips. "So tight. So fucking wet already."

He buried himself to the hilt.

And stayed there.

His eyes locked on hers.

"I'm not stopping," he said. "Not until I'm so deep inside you that you forget your own name."

Then he moved.

Slow at first.

Then harder.

Faster.

She moaned helpless, half-broken.

His thrusts shook the bedframe. Her legs wrapped around his waist without meaning to. Her hands clutched the sheets like a lifeline.

When he reached between them and circled her clit with his thumb, she screamed.

She came.

Hard.

Tears down her cheeks. His name on her lips.

He wasn't far behind.

He pressed in deep, groaning low in her ear.

"Take it," he snarled. "Take every drop of what you begged for."

And then he came.

Hot.

Full.

Inside her.

She felt it.

Felt all of him.

And when he collapsed beside her half-asleep, half-shattered she turned her face into the pillow and cried.

Not because he hurt her.

But because she'd still say yes again.

Even knowing how much it would cost her.